A third of law-breaking drivers are now taken to court, figures show

A third of drivers who are caught breaking the law are now taken to court, it was revealed today.

Official figures showed the best and worst places in England and Wales for motorists to be pulled over by the police.

Ministry of Justice data showed how likely each police force was to take bad drivers to court or hand them on-the-spot fines.

Overall, six out of ten (61.9 per cent) of offenders were dealt with by on-the-spot fines; just over a third (35.2 per cent) were taken to court, and just 2.1 per cent were issued with a Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme notice - a lesser punishment. The remaining 0.8 per cent escaped with a written warning.

Sussex took the smallest proportion of drivers to court in 2006 - just one in five - and gave fixed penalty notices to nearly eight out of ten.

In contrast, West Midlands prosecuted nearly six out of ten drivers caught breaking the law - the highest proportion of any force in England and Wales. The force fined just four out of ten.

Other forces taking less than a quarter of motoring offenders to court were Warwickshire, Surrey, Thames Valley and Hertfordshire.

Areas of the country which took nearly half of offending drivers to court were West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Norfolk, Lancashire and the Met.

Warwickshire handed out far more written warnings than most other forces, dealing with 5.6 per cent of motoring offences in this way, and Northumbria also used the measure in 4.1 per cent of cases.

The new figures also showed the number of drivers dealt with by police for using a handheld mobile phone at the wheel rose nearly a third to 168,500, up from 129,700 in 2005.

The offence of using a phone at the wheel - introduced on December 1, 2003 - contributed to an ongoing rise in the number of careless driving offences, which has risen from 86,400 in 2003 to 233,600 in 2006, a 170 per cent increase.

Drink-drive figures were also up. The number of motorists who gave a positive breath test, or refused to give a sample, rose 1 per cent to 105,700 year-on-year.

The total was significantly higher than the year 2000, when it stood at less than 95,000.

The figures also showed that the total number of motoring offences dealt with by police in the year was 12.7 million, down from 2004's peak of 13.5 million but significantly higher than the number a decade earlier, when the number stood at 9.5 million.

The largest category was parking, obstruction and waiting offences, which amounted to 8.3 million.